what you once were
by callmesandy
Summary: Ten years of Jo and Henry in tiny scenes; maybe we're all growing up.


Title from Wilco's Shot in the Arm. Not mine, no profit garnered. For pb! xxx

Jo sat on the edge of the bed and said, "And now we know that the gun in your study will kill you for real, so."

"So," Henry said. He sat down next to her. "Are you storing this information away for our next fight?"

"When was our first fight?"

"Since we began this affair?" Henry said, "I don't know that we've had one. But I still want to make sure you understand -"

"I will be Betty White and you will be my hot young boy toy. Youngish boy toy. Times have changed, Henry," Jo said.

"At some point we will have to relocate because I can't realistically pass for 50 -"

"Plastic surgery, really good plastic surgery," Jo said.

"60," Henry said.

"Dye your hair, you could be 65. We have years." She lay back on the bed. "I'm not Abigail. Not that I'm judging her, but this is a different time. Slightly."

Henry said, "If you're very sure."

"If I wasn't, last night sure made me." She said, "I wonder, if the gun can kill you, what would it do if you just got shot in the arm? Would you age like everyone else? Adam slit his own throat, we really have no test subject available now."

"Maybe we can test it," he said. "Another time."

xxx

Jo didn't want a big wedding. He had to talk her into a wedding at all. "I know it's a joke to call you old-fashioned, but really."

She liked the ring and she agreed eventually. They made all the plans for the courthouse and dinner afterwards. He said, "I'm not depriving you of white veils and long gowns and guests watching us smash cake, am I?"

"Not at all," she said. "Am I depriving you? How many times have you been married?"

"Just twice," he said. "But I don't need a veil either."

"You could have convinced me men wore veils in colonial times, I bet," she said, smiling.

"I hope not, it's a ridiculous proposition."

"Now I want you in one for the wedding," she said.

He wore it only for a moment in front of the judge, just to make her laugh. He was always pleased when he made her laugh. She was dazzling, he was acceptable, they had 20 guests and a short honeymoon in Singapore. "You've never been to Singapore, right?" Jo said.

"Never ever, I swear," he said.

xxx

"Can you even conceive children?" Jo asked. "That is something I might have asked before the wedding."

"I have no idea, and yes, you should have. Do you want children? Abe would love to be a big brother," he said. "I mean that sincerely."

"I don't know about kids," she said. "I just wonder if we can have an accident. Did Adam ever say?"

"Our conversations never went into that," Henry said. Jo was considerably more cavalier about Adam than Henry could be after the man had caused Abigail's death and nearly done the same to Jo.

"Maybe I have to shoot you in the arm," she said. "Sorry, I'm being jokey."

"No, it's fine. Abigail miscarried a number of times before we stopped trying but we never knew if it was her or me. Though it could be me since my first wife didn't conceive either. Although she might have been using certain methods to prevent pregnancy. She had a horror of it after two of her sisters died giving birth," he said.

Jo nodded. "Okay." She pulled him close and kissed him. "Okay."

xxx

She did get pregnant, though, and neither of them managed to put two and two together and realize that was the case until she was already 10 weeks along. "Abigail never carried this far," Henry said. "This is really very distressing."

Jo was, as always, more sanguine. "It's making a baby. You've done all of this from the first month on, right? Abe seems great."

"But we don't know how my condition will affect the child," he said. "Or how my condition will impact the pregnancy."

"So far, it doesn't seem to," she said. "Please don't make me be the rational one."

"I'm sorry, I never studied modern obstetrics," he said.

"I don't need you to be Dr Spock, I need you to calm down. I get to be the one who freaks out every ten minutes," she said.

"But you're not freaking out every ten minutes so I believe I should be allowed this momentary freak out," he said.

"You just said freak out twice," Jo said. "I love you."

The pregnancy actually proceeded like any other pregnancy. Henry put the sonogram picture up at work like everyone else did and nothing about the baby looked out of the ordinary. Jo delivered without complications and they named the boy Raul after her father.

xxx

It was a year before Jo was completely recovered. Henry had known from the beginning that it wasn't simply what people inanely called 'baby blues' - he hadn't studied modern obstetrics but the 20th century had named postpartum depression, not created it. Then with work she was better but she said, "No more babies for us, okay?"

"One is more than enough," he said.

"Are you sure?" She sounded plaintive. He thought that everyone comes through their own personal wars weak in some places and Jo had had two now. She was still one of the strongest people he had ever met.

"I never even expected one, and I had Abe, and now I have Raul, I am beyond lucky."

"Abe needs to stop taking our son to the park and introducing him as his grandson to pick up widows," she said. "I can't believe that works."

"The boy looks like you, Jo, everyone is charmed by that kind of aesthetically pleasing symmetry. And he's a baby," Henry said. "The cutest in the world now that Abraham is grown up."

xxx

When Raul was five, Henry began to crave aging and death again. "I don't want to watch my son die," he said to Jo.

"Abe is fine," she said.

"He will not live as long as I will," Henry said. "Nor will you or Raul. Maybe we should try just shooting me in the arm with the pistol."

"What if it kills you?" Jo crossed her arms angrily. "What if all it takes is a bullet, anywhere on you, and all 200 years catch up to you."

"Adam simply lay there dead, none of his thousand years caught up to him like that," Henry said. "Admit it, you saw that at a movie."

"Or the bullet is poison and you die? I don't want to outlive you either," she said.

"It seems unlikely," Henry said.

"You being immortal and only able to die for real from the gun that first killed you is unlikely. Impossible. Everything else is less than that," she said.

He managed to convince her, eventually. She helped him make it look like an accident, like he was cleaning the pistol and something went wrong. "But don't kill me," he said. "Keep your aim steady."

"This thing has no accuracy past two feet, Henry, I think I can hit your shin from here."

It was unbelievably painful being shot. Not as bad as other injuries, but Henry hadn't been testing ways to die for a very long time. Jo and Raul came to visit him in the hospital. "I'll have you know my vitals are very strong," Henry said. "No sign of lead poisoning or any other kind of poisoning."

Raul clambered up onto the bed and said, "We don't play with guns, Dad. You should listen to Mommy. See a gun, run away."

"I have learned that now," Henry said. "Absolutely no playing with guns."

There was no sign of a change for over two years. Jo said the aging process could be slow, what was he expecting?

One morning, though, he caught sight of his hair in the mirror at the ME office. A single grey line caught the light. He had a grey hair. He would have more. He called Abe and Jo in joy.

"I'm so excited my husband is going grey," Jo said. "I have to give up my dream of impressing everyone at the retirement community with my boy toy husband, but we all have to grow up sometime."

"Even me," Henry said, smiling. "Even me."


End file.
